


Give Us The Grown

by BugTongue



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Childhood Memories, Gender Issues, M/M, Nonbinary Character, One-Sided Relationship, The Kurta have three genders and Kurapika is none of them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 13:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30123303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BugTongue/pseuds/BugTongue
Summary: A few snapshots of Kurapika experiencing the dreaded gender woes within Kurta society.
Relationships: Kurapika/Pairo (Hunter X Hunter)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14





	Give Us The Grown

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be the prologue of a longer story, but I decided I don't wanna. Not wanting 2k to go to waste, I present some more of my Kurta stuff to you on a pewter platter. I started this in February 2019 lmao. Title is from "Wash" by Bon Iver.
> 
> Kurapika's dad is more supportive in this because Kurapika is younger than in WFITS (this is not that AU, to clarify), and the girl mentioned is Malika from the same story, although she's not named here.
> 
> Its hard being a kid. Its hard and no one understands.

“Don’t listen to them, they’re just being mean because you get so angry. I don’t care.” Pairo put his hand on Kurapika’s cheek and swiftly brought the world to a halt. The kids from the riverside huts copied their movements with the addition of baby speak, but Kurapika’s eyes were on the soft face of his friend. Two years younger and smarter than the gods. Kurapika sighed and felt his face pull into a pout as the anger faded, then let the rest of his body relax until he plopped down into the pile of leaves they were currently looking through.

“Alright, there’s walnuts in here anyway we gotta get for my mom.” The green pods were hidden amongst the leaves that fell regularly from the taller trees reaching up to heaven. Kurapika looked up to squint through the rays of the sun at the pods still on the branches, vaguely aware of the other kids growing bored with their cruelty. He looked back down and picked one up to inspect it for worms or other such pests, then glanced at his friend instead. “Pairo?”

“Mh?” Pairo held one pod up to eye level while feeling it over for inconsistencies. A constant reminder of his bravery that apparently only Kurapika could ever acknowledge.

“Do you think I’m weird?”

A pause in the conversation, then Pairo grinned and leaned in until their foreheads bounced off each other. “Duh, you’re a huge weirdo!”

Kurapika scoffed and knocked Pairo back into the soft foliage, then pounced on him for good measure. “You know what I mean! Like, this, is this weird?” He put a hand on Pairo’s shoulder to lift himself up while Pairo simply blinked at him.

“Hunh? No, I don’t think so.”

Kurapika wanted to ask ‘then why do I feel like I’m going to get in trouble?’ but refrained. If Pairo didn’t think it was weird then why should he care?

\---

Pick?

He had three options set in front of him after his mother told his father what Kurapika told her. Kurapika rubbed his mouth, a habit he picked up from his father only recently, and furrowed his brow at the explanations. “Isn’t it weird if I leave one because it doesn’t fit but then just pick another one that also doesn’t fit?”

“Hm?” His father hummed in consideration, looking at him very closely. “Maybe you just need to think about it for a while. You’re still young so if you’d like to try things out until one clicks I can talk to the elders and ask them to set a schedule.”

Kurapika wanted to do anything but this, but his mother had said it was okay and important. She would help him find his place. His legs kicked where they hung over the edge of the chair, his limbs long enough now he had to lift his toes up to keep from dragging on the ground. “Yeah, maybe I just have to try it out. You don’t need me for chores?” He looked to his father for confirmation, who smiled and put a hand on his hip.

“I’m a father, I can handle my domain just fine.” The assumption was likely that he was a man, and thus did men’s work, but after learning Kurapika might have been given the wrong role he wasn’t sure what men’s work was even supposed to be. Why was it work only for men? Why had they expected Kurapika to excel at it before he could even respond to his own name? Kurapika looked at his swinging feet, fingers stilling over his lips.

His mother knelt in front of him with a similarly gentle expression from when she reassured him his father wouldn’t be upset with him. Her hands came up and took the smaller one placed in his lap. “You only need to pick one that lets you help in the village to the best of your abilities. Don’t worry what anyone has to say, I taught you how to beat people up if it comes to that.”

“Try not to let things come to that,” His father sighed, already seeming weary of his wife’s brashness. “But… she’s right. If you can defend yourself and you can control yourself, then you’ll be just fine.

\---

The sinew snare in his hands was finicky, or perhaps it was his fingers that didn’t know what they were doing. Clumsy things. His brow furrowed until he got the knot correct, then he bounced up pleased with his success. The girl he was with had already finished setting up her trap some few minutes ago and was leaning on her hiking staff with a rather stormy expression. Her brown hair fell into her face where it had come loose from its braid, sweat making the loose strands stick to her face. Kurapika settled down and shouldered his bag of supplies to follow her to the next spot.

She didn’t move.

“Aren’t you that freak who knocked some kid off a cliff?”

Is that what the villagers were saying? A wash of old horror and new dread froze him in place, heat rushing to his face to compete with the heat swirling around them in the damp forest. “No, I fell and Pairo saved me. Why do you think I pushed him?”

“Well he doesn’t remember any of it, how do we know you didn’t make up a cover story just so you can play house with him?” She stood up off her staff and shook her head, already turning to head off down the game trail. “Whatever, keep up.”

Kurapika swallowed down the adrenalin making his every pore prickle and hoped his eyes didn’t betray his distress. He swung his suddenly heavy feet after his mentor as they moved deeper into the forest away from the village, away from what seemed to be the dwindling amount of people with any patience for him.

\---

The men's voices were a murmuring drone that ebbed and flowed, thrumming throughout the circular building they used for important meetings Kurapika had thus far never been privy to. He found it difficult to keep up but the elders said this was vital to him deciding if he was in fact meant to take his place as a man. To hold numbers in one's head always--from the time, to currency, to measurements, to the different things that can be done with those numbers. Debate on the village histories, legends, customs. Where to improve and where to move next and what signs they should look for to know its time.

There were no windows in the building and Kurapika thought he was maybe breathing too loud. Perhaps simply too much, or too little, or that he was spacing out and forgetting he'd breathed at all. All this planning and discussion that Pairo was so good at, maybe Pairo was just naturally good at being a boy. Then again, Kurapika skipped out on the lessons for these things whenever his father tried to sit him down and explain it, seemed he needed that prior knowledge. Knuckles turning white in the dark room lit only by a lamp kept in the center, Kurapika vowed that if he didn't pass out from overstimulation he would stay home for his father's tutoring.

A hand settled on his back and gave a small circular rub, an attempt at centering from his father as if he'd heard Kurapika's thoughts. He was speaking, but not to Kurapika, so he allowed himself to stop trying to keep up with things he'd shirked all responsibility from the moment he was old enough to get away with it.

\---

Stars spread across the sky numerous and bright enough to light the moonless night. Kurapika had his knife and his shoulder bag of supplies at the ready, strapped in place as he snuck between huts on silent toes. Duck beneath the window the cliffside family liked to leave open, hurry out past where he might be seen should anyone introduce lantern light from their doors, then running flat out across the bluff.

With the utmost care of someone who had already looked god in the face midair, he descended over the edge, hand over foot. Not the highest cliff, but the first half of the way down was difficult and steep. He lowered down onto the rocks he could more easily navigate and set off beneath the soft wash of starlight.

He and Pairo used to come out here often, two explorers who wanted to see what lay just ahead, just behind that rock, just around that tree. Kurapika hauled himself up onto a flat-topped stone covered in lichens and pulled the candle and fire starter out of his bag first. Once he had light then came the book.

He wasn't supposed to take anything out of the library in the Elder’s hut but with them watching his every move now to see what he'd choose he needed some privacy. The book in his hands was boring, focused around construction mostly, but he needed to understand something and stop feeling so foolish all the time.

He never realized how little he wanted to be in the village until he started looking for his place amongst his people.

\---

When he was with Pairo he didn't have to worry about anything it seemed. He could keep an eye on the ground in front of his friend, listen to Pairo's ideas and poke holes in them only to get the same treatment in return, and most of all pretend there was more to life than the stupid village. Kurapika was sure he was losing it because even with his desire to help Pairo he was hardly planning to do chores the rest of his life. He couldn't cook, he found cleaning boring, and as much as the younger kids and babies loved him he didn't want to be in charge of them his whole life. If he was going to look after a kid he wanted it to be his.

“Kurapika?” Pairo stopped walking to look back at him. The long, sunny grasses brushed against their sides on this path to the river, as if the meadow patches were reaching out to call them go play.

“Uh? Oh, sorry. I just spaced out.” Kurapika lengthened his stride to catch up, but his mind was still processing something.

“You're sure thinking hard, what is it?”

“... You ever think about having kids?”

Pairo tilted his head. “We are kids.”

“Yeah but like we won’t always be. Do you think you’ll want to have them when you’re older?” Kurapika closely examined the way his writhing emotions wound tighter after he finished speaking, trying to figure out why exactly speaking out loud made his face heat up. He looked over at Pairo, true realization dawning, and put a hand over his own mouth to keep from taking the question back.

“Hmm. Yeah maybe, if I ever get married sure. I don't think I will though, not unless she wants to run away with us.” Pairo's smile was bright at the very idea of escaping the village to explore. Conflicting emotions left Kurapika's heart both too big for his body and lodged somewhere in his throat. He squeezed out a hummed response.

“Yeah, none of the girls seem as eager as we are to get out of here. They must get enough of it from hunting and foraging.” Kurapika elected to keep his out of control feelings to himself. Best friends forever didn't need to mean anything more than the strictest definition--they'd be together forever and explore the world together.

And if he didn't ever "play house" with Pairo, then maybe that vile rumor about his intentions would die down as well.

\---

“Mom, what would it be if I wanted to hunt with you and the rest but also take care of Pairo? Would that still make me a nester or would I be a girl?” They sat together to repair his mother's arrows. Some of the fletching had gotten ratty so it was time to replace the feathers. His mother pursed her lips, then hummed.

“A girl. You don't want to take care of people in general, you just love your friend,” Kurapika ripped the feather in his hands in half and quickly got a different one. “So if you wanna work with the women mostly then you're doing women's work, you'd be one of us.”

Her smile soothed some of his anxiety, but not all of it. “But I still don't think I wanna be called a girl or wear your clothes. I like what I've got…”

“Well, you'll keep sticking out like a sore thumb if you don't try to look the part. Are you sure you don't want to stay closer to home? You'd be able to hang out with your friend more.”

“I don't like dad's meetings and I think some of his friends already think I’m a girl. They don't want to talk to me about anything.” He set down one arrow and picked up the next one. “Can't I just do stuff without having to figure this out? I don't get it, I don't feel any sort of way, can't I just be my own thing?”

His mother watched his expression change as he went on, then she carefully set the arrows aside to pull Kurapika into her lap. “... You should be allowed, little one. I don't think this village is ready to understand you, especially the elders. If you can wait them out, you can try to bring it up when you're an age they'll take seriously.”

Kurapika rest his head on her shoulder, quiet in response. Being older seemed so far away, and this all seemed like so much more trouble than it was worth. He sighed. “I'll just stay home with dad then. For now.”

Until he could take Pairo and run off into the outside world--whatever it was.

\---

The walnut trees swayed above him as a breeze blew through. Kurapika sat on a rock near enough the water’s edge that droplets would make a fair bid to curl up in his lap. River spirits, his mother explained on night while they were gathering water; creatures that loved their domain so much they would pull anything in with them, regardless of if what they took hold of was made for their world or not. He watched leaves shake loose from their branches and fall into the current, only to be carried off and drawn down to the silty riverbed.

He decided then. If he could not find his place here, then that was alright. If he couldn’t be a productive member, then he would at least leave to enjoy the outside world, and when he came back he would bring with him things of more use than his mere presence could have provided.


End file.
